F*ck, Marry, Kill: Han Solo. Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader.

May 4th was Star Wars day–“May the fourth be with you”–and editors Jennifer Wright and Ashley Cardiff should have done a Star Wars-themed post but they didn’t! Instead, they let their ideas ripen! If you need a refresher on how to play “Fuck, Marry, Kill,” well, that sure surprises us, but here’s one anyway. Today’s players are the original trilogy’s protagonists as well as the Big Bad.

Ashley: I have to agree but I suspect for completely different reasons.

Jennifer: It’s obvious: Fuck Han, Kill Luke, Marry Darth.

Ashley: That’s deeply disturbing for at least three reasons, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Is one of them: “We agree?”

Ashley: No. I’ll agree that I, too, would initially choose to fuck Han Solo. Your first instinct should always be to fuck Han. Marry Luke because he’s boring and stable, and blankly virtuous. Kill Darth because obviously, you monster. But I’m here to explain how that impulse is wrong! As we learn from the novelizations–of which I read all–Han turns out to be a pretty decent husband and father, while Luke devotes himself to this Jedi academy off in the jungles of some Yavin (one of the Yavins) and kind of loses his mind. Several times. So actually you fuck Luke, boring though that may be, and you marry Han because Han is perfect. As we always knew.

And he shot first!

Jennifer: WHAT? Okay, fine, Ashley, I have not read the novelizations, but I have heard you describe them enough to know that Ewoks are the most self-sacrificing and noble of races, and that someone fucks a ghost. I can’t remember who. That said – consider – seriously – the benefits of marrying Darth Vader. First of all, you’re always going to get to be the nice one. Second, he’s the most powerful man in the universe. And he has a Death Star, basically its own planet, which, thus far, has no defined “culture.” But tons of people. All of them loyal and obedient. You could turn that place into a Versailles that revolved only around your personal taste. There is no human real-world equivalent to marrying Darth Vader, because no one else will let you rule a land that is culturally a blank slate. How will people dress on the Death Star? The way you think is coolest. What music will people work to develop? Your favorite kind. What theater spectacles will go on? The kind you like. Or your husband will do the thing with his thumbs where he squeezes their head off! (Is that what he does?) I know this entails being some sort of monster Eva Peron-type leader. I know that. But, really, what’s the line between Eva Peron and Jackie O? People playing “Camelot,” I think.

Ashley: Oh my God, you just made a cogent argument for marrying Darth Vader. Your natural inclinations toward totalitarianism are unsettling, you know that, right? At some point you have to step away and recognize that you’re not the only one who thinks being a ruthless dictator would be cool.

Jennifer: I want to be a ruthless dictator over a world that can be entirely fashioned around my whims. It’s different. Look, would I change the stormtrooper outfits? Probably not. Would you see a lot of people wearing elaborate wigs, letting me win at craps and swing dancing in Givenchy? PROBABLY YES. Now, look, I’m not going to lie. The excesses of the Death Star would cause a small but vocal band of people to decry it as “decadent” and possibly attack it. But… wait.

"Let them eat Chandad!"

Ashley: There’s got be a point in the day where you blink into realization that you’re one obedient militia away from basically being Nero. Like, one.

Jennifer: Whatever. Sofia Coppola will avenge me and my loyal, beautifully dressed Death Star subjects 200 years later. Or, if Andrew Lloyd Webber is on this shit, like, 50 years! Hardly any time at all!

Ashley: At least you know marrying Vader will lead to tragedy. You can’t be Imelda Marcos forever, Jen. You get all the shoes but eventually you have to fall from grace. And that’s why you should marry Han Solo, the universe’s most attractive man, and also all-around good guy.

Jennifer: LIKE ACHILLES I WILL CHOOSE A LIFE OF GLORY RATHER THAN ONE OF CONTENTMENT. Even if it is over all too quickly.

Ashley: I think you’re looking at this wrong way. In fact, you’re really being more like Paris; feckless, spoiled, glutted on pleasures of the flesh and all.

"Imagine the Iliad... but terrible."

Jennifer: Paris… was not an empire builder? I’m creating a world full of light and beauty, using only my own indomitable will and the endless resources of my husband.

Ashley: No. Paris sucked.

Jennifer: The beauty of the Death Star will linger in C3PO’s mind for 1,090,969,785,645,486 years.

Ashley: Great, Jen! Good thinking! Your influence will be so profound that a powerless, unloving machine can perform its most basic function: knowing stuff. Aim higher.

Jennifer: The sight of the women in their gowns twirling, the string quartet in the background, the towers of champagne and macarons, the sweet smell of space violets – it will imbue him with a longing such as he has never know. A longing for the whirl, and the whirl, and the whirl… and the fever called “living.” On his deathbed he will cry out “If only I could have been one of them!” And people will think he means… not someone on the Death Star. But that is what he will mean.

Ashley: Well, we’ve really talked ourselves into a corner. I’m still content with the knowledge I’m right–marry Han, have some wholesome missionary sex with Luke, kill Vader. But you really took this to a dark place.

"Women are always saying they want a nice guy but you give them ONE footrub and suddenly your masculinity's in question."

Jennifer: A light place, Ashley. A place where all is shadowy beauty, and peace, and pleasure. And Givenchy. Givenchy is really not my style, is it? It looked really good when Audrey Hepburn wore it. I still like the way it sounds when you say it aloud. Givenchy. Givenchy. Givenchy.

Ashley: It’s pretty different now. Way more Catholic guilt and surf goth, way less peplums and stuff you can wear to cocktail parties. Also, the blood of Alderaan is pretty much on you and I’m unsure we can stay friends.

Jennifer: Did you know Mormons say you get a planet when you die?!

Ashley: I did know that. But what do the people of Alderaan get, Jennifer?